


Treasures Untold

by Rumaan



Series: Magical Creature Yousana [1]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical creatures, Blame Zarifa, Discovery, F/M, Merpeople AU, Romance, Yes Yousef is a merman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-02-02 22:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Whilst staying at Chris' cabin, Sana stumbles across a merman.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mango22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mango22/gifts).



> This was meant to be a Halloween prompt, but I ran out of time and Zarifa is patient and lovely and didn't mind if I wrote this a little later. She wanted Merman!Yousef and him trying to pretend his fishtail was a Halloween costume.
> 
> So yeah, this is totally a Yousef-is-a-merman AU so no judging. If you are going to judge then go and judge Zarifa cos she asked for this AU!! Title comes from Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid because what's an merpeople AU if it doesn't reference The Little Mermaid somewhere?!

The lake that sat about half a mile to the west of the cabin looked gloriously misty in the early morning sunlight. Sana breathed in deeply as she took in the sight, loving how the frosty air stung at her cheeks and had her burrowing her hands deeper into her pockets. Snow hadn’t arrived yet but the leaves beneath her feet were crispy with ice and she revelled the sound of them crunching under her feet. 

It was fun to go away with her friends and Chris’ cabin was cosy and comfy. However, Sana felt the need to get out and away from it for a couple of hours. It wasn't the same as when they’d come eighteen months or so ago, just the five girls. Now other halves were involved. Vilde had pleaded for Magnus to come, claiming that because Eva and Noora were dating then she should be allowed to bring her boyfriend. Magnus, always happy to go along with Vilde, had then asked if the boys could come too so he wasn't the only guy, which of course had lead to Even accompanying Isak because they were disgustingly joined at the hip like that. 

So the cabin felt really crowded and it was hard to find space where no one was around. So Sana had sought refuge by the lake that was only a small distance away. Shaking out the rug she’d brought with her, she sat down and pulled out the roll with cheese and thermos of coffee as well as a book and prepared to enjoy a quiet and solitary breakfast to herself by the peaceful lake. 

It was the splashing that grabbed her attention a little while later. It was nothing like the gentle rippling of water lapping at the rocks. It was more deliberate and playful. Lifting her head, she scanned the scene in front of her to see if an animal had come down to drink and splash in the water. However, there was nothing along the water’s edge. Frowning a little, Sana shifted her gaze to the body of water and her mouth dropped open at the sight that met her eyes. 

Towards the middle of the water, there appeared the head and shoulders of a man, which was remarkable in itself considering it was the middle of November and the water would be freezing cold. But that wasn't what had Sana gawping. It was the large fishtail that creating the splashing noise as the...man? dived in and out of the water clearly relishing the motion. 

Pinching herself to make sure she wasn't still asleep and dreaming, Sana scrambled to her feet and then winced as the action had leaves crunching loudly that rang out across the lake. It caused the...creature? in the lake to freeze before he slowly turned her way and stared at her with the same shock that she felt. 

The stunned silence as they just stared at each other dragged out until Sana needed to stamp her feet to get some feeling back into them. The noise also galvanised the...merman? into moving too as he swam towards her with both fear and curiosity on his face. 

“You are, aren't you?” She asked as he drew closer. 

“Am what?”

“A merman!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said a little too rushed for it to be as casual as he clearly meant it to be. Plus his eyes shifted to the side, which was a dead giveaway.

“C’mon,” she said impatiently.

His cheeks reddened under her gaze, but then a smile lit up his features and her breath hitched in her throat at how glorious it was. He said triumphantly, “It’s a costume. You know, for Halloween. I’m testing it out.”

Sana couldn’t help the disbelieving snort that escaped her. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going for to convince me that you’re not a merman?”

“It’s true!”

“Yeah, well, Halloween was three weeks ago so, no offence, but that lie sucks. And if you were actually just testing it out then you would have died of hypothermia by now.”

“Hypothermia?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “What’s that?”

“When your body loses heat faster than it can replace it. It happens to humans if we go swimming in lakes in Norway in the middle of November for a length of time without a drysuit. Our bodies would lose heat too fast and start to shut down. But there  _ you _ are, in freezing cold water, without any visible effects.”

“Oh.”

His shoulders had deflated somewhat and she couldn’t help but feel a little bad at dismantling his pretence of being human so firmly.

“So? Are you?” she asked.

“Am I what?”

Tutting, Sana said, “A merman?!”

Looking over his shoulder as if he was worried that there would be someone watching, he leaned forward a little and murmured quietly, “Yeah, I am.”

Her eyes widened at his words. Even though it was obviously he was, a shiver danced down her spine at his confirmation. Magical creatures like him weren’t meant to exist, but yet, here he was; a living and breathing merman right before her in the water. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said in a rush clearly worried. “We follow a strict code of secrecy and if anyone ever knew of our existence we’d-”

“You’d be rounded up and experimented on,” Sana finished for him.

He gave her a small smile. “Well, yeah. That’s what the elders say anyway.”

Sadness washed through her at his words and she wished that human nature wasn’t so avaricious when it came nature. He was right. If the existence of merpeople was known then humans would capture them and aim to understand their creation. Sometimes, things were not for humans to know but solely for Allah to comprehend. 

“Your elders are right,” she said sadly. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks,” he said, his smile getting brighter. 

“So are there many of you?”

“Not really. Not anymore with how populated the world is. My pod-”

Sana couldn’t help but interrupt. “Pod?”

“What we call a group of us.”

“Like dolphins?”

“No,” he said with a scowl. “ _ Not _ like dolphins.”

Seeing that she had managed to offend him, she said a little shamefaced, “Sorry. Your existence is all very new. Not that it’s an excuse.”

He shrugged his shoulders a little, smiled at her and said, “It’s okay. I get that. We’ve always known that humans exist. Anyway, as I was saying, my pod used to live in the Bosphorus but it got so populated that staying a secret became impossible so my family migrated to colder, less inhabited waters and here I am!”

A feeling of kinship settled in her chest at his information. They might be different species but they both had a shared experience of migration and she was interested to find out if he felt like a fish out of water at times, too. She giggled briefly at her words and just how apt they were for the merman in front of her. If he was a fish that was. Not that she was going to ask. Not after the whole pod debacle.

“Were there already merpeople here?” she asked.

“Yeah - we had pods all over the world at one point, but these days very few of us survive.”

“Was it hard for your family to settle into new waters?”

He huffed out a laugh at her words. “My grandmother always says that she thought she would die of cold when they first arrived.”

“What about the local pods? Were they friendly?”

As always, her mind went to her experiences in middle school, where the threats against her had been daily and had left her distrusting of society and people on a whole. 

“My grandparents say it was hard at first, but merpeople have to stick together these days so despite our differences, we have been accepted. What about your family?”

“What about my family?”

“They moved here, too, right?”

She couldn’t help the scowl that descended then. She even stood out as different to other Norwegians to a merman!

“How did you know?”

“You wear hijab.”

Now Sana was just confused. “You know about hijab?!”

The merman laughed then, the noise sounding like a bubbling brook, happy and carefree. The sound filled her with a sense of joy. 

“Does Allah not say all the creatures worship him? We worship him, too.”

“ _ Subhanallah! _ ” she exclaimed. “You’re Muslim!”

“Of course.”

She moved closer to him then, perching on the edge of a rock that stuck out over the edge of the water and leaning over. “Tell me about how you worship Allah.”

“Careful,” he warned and his hand came out to rest against the stone surface close to her. “I wouldn’t want you to fall over into the water and catch hypertension.”

Sana grinned. “You mean hypothermia. Hypertension is something completely different.”

“Wow,” he said with a shake of his head. “Here I am trying to save your life and you’re correcting me!”

“It’s better to correct mistakes early on,” she said primly. However, the effect of her words was ruined by how wide she was grinning. 

He observed her in silence for a moment, a strangely tender expression on his face, but before she could query what was wrong, he had started to talk.

 

\-------------

 

The sun was starting to sink back down in the sky by the time Sana heard the frantic shouts of her name. She had completely lost track of time talking to the merman. They had talked about so much including how he even knew about Halloween. Everything he had said was so interesting and she had never felt such a bond so quickly with someone. She couldn’t help but feel irritated that her friends were intruding on this time.

Looking over her shoulder, she could see the glimpse of bright ski jackets getting closer. Turning back to the merman, she smiled regretfully and said, “My friends are coming. You better go.”

“Sana? That’s your name?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Yousef.”

“Yousef,” she said, savouring the way his name felt perfect on her tongue.The shouts of her name were getting closer and she continued hurriedly, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I can be if you want to be.”

“I do,” she said, her heart pounding at her forwardness. She had never wanted to spend time with another person before as much as she did with Yousef. Let alone a boy.

With a quick look over her shoulder, he said, “See you tomorrow. The same time as we met today?”

She nodded and then in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

“Sana! Here you are!” Chris said behind her, her voice relieved. “Did you not hear us calling you?”

Standing up and spinning around to face her best friend, Sana said a little distractedly finding it difficult to turn her attention completely to her friend, “Huh?!”

There was concern on Chris’ face. It was clear that she had been worried and Sana felt a pang of remorse for causing her friend any anxiety.

“Didn’t you hear us calling? You’ve been gone for so long that we started to worry something had happened to you.”

“Sorry,” Sana said apologetically. “I lost track of time.”

“What were you doing?”

“Reading,” she said, holding up the book that she was fortunately clutching.

“For all this time?” Chris asked with a bemused expression.

“Yeah. It’s so peaceful here.”

“And cold!”

“My coat is warm,” Sana said with a shrug.

“Anyway, are you ready to come back? Noora and Even have cooked a feast.”

“Sound’s great,” she said, forcing some enthusiasm into her voice. On any other day, she would be looking forward to sharing a good meal with her friends, but now all she wanted to do was continue talking to Yousef.

As she began to follow Chris back up to the cabin, Sana turned around to stare out at the lake. She thought she caught a glimpse of scales and a tail disappearing down into the water, but she couldn’t be sure if it was a trick of her eyes or not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sana and Yousef find out more about each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I really like merman!Yousef and there is more to this story now!

Sana was back early the next morning. It was helpful that she was always the first person up so she could pray Fajr and also because unlike the others, she hadn't been drunk the night before. It could be lonely sometimes being the only Muslim among her friends. There was a lack of understanding at times towards her life that could be frustrating to deal with but at least she had a group of friends now. School was a lot easier to navigate with friends by her side. It didn't mean that she always felt included though. There was that little feeling of isolation and being an outsider that dogged her even with her friends. Those little things that set her apart and made her aware that she wasn't quite the same as them and would never be. She wondered whether this was why she was drawn to Yousef; someone who wasn’t quite of her world but shared key experiences with her.

Yousef was already there when she arrived pink cheeked with her breath fanning out in front of her from the cold. 

She stopped feeling inexplicably shy when she saw him waiting for her. He was just as handsome as she remembered and if she focused solely on his face then it was as if he was human. She shouldn't do that of course because he wasn't. He was decidedly inhuman and she needed to remember that. It wouldn't do to fall in love with a merman, Muslim or not. 

“Hi,” she said softly, coming to stop at the edge of the rock she’d sat on yesterday. 

“Hello,” he replied with a smile on his face. 

Dropping her rucksack on the ground by her feet, Sana bent over and pulled a rug out again. She could feel his eyes on her as she spread the blanket out and settled down, pulling a thermos of coffee out.

“Want some?”

“What is it?”

“Coffee.”

She held it out and he leaned forward so he could sniff it. His eyebrows rose and he smiled a little and said, “It smells good. What does it do?”

“It's a stimulant. It has caffeine that helps kickstart my system. Also it's warm and delicious. Want to try some?”

Yousef shook his head. “I would but there's lots of merpeople tales of caution about eating or drinking human food.”

“Yeah? What do they say?”

“About how it slowly poisons you and turns your tail rotten until you die in agony.”

Sana snatched the thermos back away from him and he laughed softly at her action. “Hey!” she objected. “There's no point in taking risks.”

“It's nice to have you look out for me,” Yousef said, grinning.

Ducking her head shyly, she looked up at him from under her eyelashes and said quietly, “I wouldn't want to be the cause for anything happening to you.”

Their eyes caught and silence fell between them as they drowned in each other’s gazes. The unwelcome truth that she could happily sit and look at him all day dawned on her. She didn't want to develop feelings for an enigmatic merman who lived in a lake in rural Norway. There was nothing that could come from that. However, as their eyes lingered longingly on each other, the unwelcome realisation that she hadn't met anyone who sung to her soul the way he did took hold off her mind. 

Shaking her head a little as if attempting to dispel the thought, she tore her gaze away from his and asked, “what do you eat?”

“Mainly plants,” he said, dropping his eyes from hers and stroking a pattern across the rock she was sat on. “Our diet used to be heavily reliant on fish but fish stocks are so depleted now that we mainly rely on plants.”

Shame flooded through her as she realised that once more human selfishness was the reason for this. First his family had had to leave their native waters because of the encroachment of humans on their habitat and now his diet was limited because of her species. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, looking down.

“It’s not your fault,” he said pragmatically. “I’m pretty sure you’re not single handedly responsible for eating all the fish.”

Sana couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, when you put it  _ that _ way.”

A comfortable silence fell between them and she was able to sit back, close her eyes, and turn her face up to the sun, enjoying the small amount of heat it gave out. It wasn’t anything compared to the warm sun that beat down in Morocco and that she missed during the long winter months in Norway. 

There was a loud splash and small droplets of icy water fell on her, making her automatically flinch as she wiped them away. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to where Yousef now sat next to her on the rock. Her breath hitched in her throat at how beautiful he was close up. His hair, slightly curled and a little damp, framed his face and brought attention to the deep brown of his eyes and the sharp line of his jaw. She couldn’t help how her eyes skittered down his chest, taking in the breadth of his shoulders and the lean muscles that denoted his swimming ability and then came to rest on the pearly sheen of his fishtail. It was beautiful in an other worldly way and she had to resist an urge to reach her fingers out to brush the green and gold scales that glimmered so brightly in the wintery sun. It ended in an elegant swirl of delicate fins that fanned out beautifully over the edge of the rock and back down into the water.

Pulling her eyes away, Sana looked back up at him to see him almost nervously observing her inspection. She found she didn’t like how anxious he was as if worried she would run away because of their differences and so asked, jokingly, “Can you be out of water?”

He rolled his eyes playfully and replied teasingly, “I’m not a fish! Besides, I thought human culture was full of tales about beautiful mermaids who bask on rocks, singing and combing their hair.”

“That is true. I feel deprived by the fact that you are not lovingly combing your hair right now.”

Almost of their own accord, her fingers reached up and tugged on a lock of his hair and she couldn’t miss his swift intake of breath at her action.

“Sorry,” she said, snatching her fingers away. 

“No, it’s fine,” Yousef said, hurriedly, reaching out and brushing her hand with his.

His skin was cool to the touch and she shivered a little, unsure whether it was due to his chilly fingers or the feel of his skin against hers.

“You are so warm,” he marvelled.

Linking her fingers through his, she said, “That’s because I don’t live in a frosty Norwegian lake.”

“What is it like to be human?”

Pausing, Sana thought hard about his question. Whilst she had often reflected on her differences from other humans due to religion and culture, she had never really thought about how humans were set apart from other species. 

“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“I have,” Yousef said a little wistfully.

“You don’t like being a merman?”

He looked down, his free hand brushing against the his scales and a small frown on his face. “It’s not that I don’t like it,” he finally said. “I just wish I wasn’t so confined. My pod are so happy to be living in this lake in such a remote area but I want to travel. To see more than this small corner of Norway.”

“Can’t you? The oceans make up 70% of the world’s surface.”

“I wish it was that easy. The open ocean isn’t safe for merpeople - especially single merpeople. We are preyed upon by sharks and orca.  And sticking to the coastline, where it is easier to hide means we are more liable to come across humans as well as fishing nets, which are equally, if not more dangerous.”

Sadness flooded through Sana at his words. She had never thought about the freedom so many in Norway had to just jump on a plane, boat or train and go somewhere new. To discover new lands and experience different climates.

“Where would you go if you could go anywhere?” she asked.

“The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. I would love to see and experience the warm waters that my grandma speaks about so fondly. She tells me tales of how her pod would move constantly between them until it got so busy and populated that they couldn’t anymore. That’s when she and my grandfather moved away as a young couple. The pod was decreasing in size and those who weren’t dying from propeller cuts or ingesting pollutants moved away, too. But how she speaks of the sun beating down on sparkling blue waters and warming her skin until she would dive down to cooler, deeper waters has always made me yearn for such an experience.”

“Do other members of your family want to see where your grandparents grew up?”

Yousef wrinkled his nose. “Not really. They are content here. They like the secluded nature of the lake and life as a merperson.”

“And you don’t?”

“Yes and no. I love the water and I love my family, but I’ve always been fascinated by humans despite how it’s drummed into very merchild’s head how dangerous contact with humans is and that we should remain hidden at all costs.”

Fascinated by this insight into a very different life, Sana asked, “What would your family say if they saw us sitting here?”

He laughed. “They would be horrified and my mother would point out that my curiosity towards humans had gone too far.”

“I’m glad you’re curious about us. I would never have met you otherwise.”

“That would have been a tragedy,” he said teasingly, but squeezed her hand and she knew he felt the strange connection between them the same way that she did.

As before, the day passed too quickly and as the sun began to sink towards the horizon, Sana scrunched her nose up and said, “I have to get back. My friends will start to look for me again.”

“But you’ll come back tomorrow?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” she replied sadly.

Yousef’s face fell and she felt her own answering pang of sadness lance through her chest. She didn’t want to say goodbye to him. The potential of never seeing him again hurt too much to contemplate and she had pushed it out of her mind for the day, only allowing it to surface now. 

“What time are you going?”

“Early. We need to leave her at 9am to catch the train back to Oslo.”

He looked down at where their hands were still intertwined and said, “But you’ll come by to say goodbye, right?”

“Of course. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. But I’ll probably be a little earlier.”

“I’ll be here. Waiting.”

Sana reluctantly tugged her hand out of his grasp and got to her feet. “See you tomorrow, Yousef,” she said, but the words held none of the excitement that they had yesterday. These words were tainted with the bitterness of parting ways and she saw it reflected in the tightness of his jaw and the unhappy look in his eyes.

 

\------------

 

Once again Yousef was waiting for her when she arrived thirty minutes earlier than she had yesterday. This time she didn’t carry a bag with books, a blanket, coffee and food as she had the day before. This time all she carried was a heart heavy with the sorrow of leaving Yousef here in this lake whilst she returned to her life in Oslo.

He was already sitting on the rock and she dropped down next to him, her hand already reaching for his.

“Do you think you’ll come back?” he asked as his thumb stroked soft patterns on the back of her hand. 

“Not sure. I mean, Chris is bound to invite us all again, but it might not be for a while. Plus, I’ll start university next year.”

“Where you’ll study to be a surgeon?”

She smiled at his question. Of course he hadn’t forgotten the small snippet of information she’d given him two days ago when talking about how she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. He instinctively remembered information about her that no one else did. It was this bond that made her chest ached with the thought of not having him in her life anymore. It was stupid, she was not overly sentimental or melodramatic. She had known Yousef for two and a bit days, but it felt like she had known him forever. He’d slipped into her heart quickly but taken up root so strongly that she wasn’t sure he would ever leave again.

“Don’t forget me,” she said, the depth of her emotions making the words come out in a breathless rush. 

Yousef smiled. “I don’t think that’s possible. I will remember you, Sana Bakkoush, until my dying day. The human girl with the smile to rival the sun.”

Moisture flooded her eyes at his words and she leaned against him, turning her face into his shoulder while swallowing hard and blinking fiercely to stop the tears from falling. She wasn’t going to cry. This had been a beautiful meeting of minds and she was determined to look back on it fondly.

“I’m going to miss you,” she murmured thickly into his shoulder. “I’ve only known you two days, but I’m going to miss you so much.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sana comes across someone she never thought she'd see again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was meant to write this months ago but life happened! Then it was written but my laptop broke but finally here we are! The happy ending this story needed and my babies deserve!

It had been three months since Sana had been back in Oslo. Three months since she had said goodbye to Yousef after two glorious days of spending hours talking to him and one painful goodbye. Two days of talking three months ago should not have left an ache in her chest, but it had. She caught herself going down to the water in Oslo and watching the waves just in case she caught a glimpse of him - or any merperson. 

Of course she hadn’t.

Catching sight of him in the lake by the cabin had been rare enough. It shouldn’t have happened yet somehow it had and she didn’t regret meeting him. Even if now she carried a sadness around with her because she missed him. 

“Okay, when are you going to snap out of this?!” Chris asked with some exasperation in her voice.

“Snap out of what?” 

“This weird distracted mood you’ve been in ever since the cabin trip.”

“I haven’t been in a weird mood!” Sana objected.

“Girl! You’ve been so quiet and mopey. If I didn’t know better then I would think that you’ve got a broken heart or something.”

Her chest contracted at Chris’ words and she had to look away from her best friend’s concerned face.

“Do you have a broken heart?!” Chris asked sounding a little unsure.

“Don’t be silly. When would I have time to get my heart broken?”

“You did disappear for those last two days in the cabin. Did you meet someone? On Jodel?”

“Do I look like I would be on Jodel?!” Sana asked in disgust.

“Hey, anyone can be on Jodel!”

“No! I didn’t meet anyone on Jodel!”

“Ah ha! But you did meet someone,” Chris said with a triumphant waggle of her eyebrows.

Sana bit the inside of her cheek and wondered whether she could share the existence of Yousef with her best friend. Chris was trustworthy, she knew that but it was a big ask to talk to someone about merpeople and expect them to believe you. 

Taking a deep breath, Sana decided to take a chance. She needed to talk to someone about this. She  _ needed _ to talk to someone about this. It was too hard to sit on all the emotions she was currently undergoing and not have an outlet to get them all out.

“There was someone,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah - but it’s complicated.”

“Oh? Is he not Muslim?”

A brief smile spread across her face at Chris’ words. She liked that one of her friends paid enough attention to know these details about her. Chris knew how much Sana’s faith meant to her and how soul destroying it would be if she fell in love with someone non-Muslim, knowing it couldn’t end happily. 

“No, he is. It’s just-”

A flash of familiar black hair in the corner of her eye had her whirling around in shock. She knew that hair with it’s slight curl and how it made her want to run her fingers through it and revel in it’s softness. Scanning the crowd with eager eyes, she spotted the same head of hair and her breath hitched in her throat as she dwelled on the broad width of the shoulders of the man and slightly unsteady gait as if he was still figuring out to walk.

“It can’t be,” she murmured.

“Can’t be what?” Chris asked in confusion.

However, Sana’s attention was solely on the stranger, watching as he meandered through the crowd in a confused way. “Turn around,” she muttered. “Come on, show me your face.”

“Sana?!” Chris called but all Sana could do was wave a distracted hand towards her to indicate how she needed Chris to stop interrupting her right now.

The man turned then as if hearing her words and a gasp burst out of her mouth as she realised that it was him. It was Yousef.

Somehow he was here in Oslo and  _ on land _ . Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest and then the adrenaline kicked in and she was off, weaving through the crowds of people, desperate to get across to Yousef, who was making his way once more away from her, and figure out exactly what he was doing there - and with  _ legs _ !

Five metres out from him and she slowed, allowing her lungs to pull in deep breaths of air before she shakily called out, “Yousef?! Yousef is that you?!”

He turned then and her breath hitched in her throat at the hopeful look on his face. It then morphed into the most breathtaking smile as he spotted her and his arms reached out as if they needed to touch her. She understood that urge deep in her bones as she felt exactly the same. She had thought she had missed him before but seeing him once more in front of her and she realised just how much she had suppressed her sadness as leaving him in the lake three months ago. 

Lunging forward, Sana flung herself into his open arms and buried her face into the crook of his neck. Her arms latched around his waist and her fingers dug themselves into the material of his clothes, bunching the fabric up and clinging on tightly in fear that this was nothing more than a dream that she would wake up from any minute. 

She had no idea how long they remained just hugging each other but she all but had to drag herself back from him. Tilting her head up, she looked up at him in awe and said, “What...How are you here? And with legs?!”

He smiled down at her but didn’t answer. He made a couple of gestures that made no sense to her and she could feel her frustration rising at why he wouldn’t just speak to her but instead looked at her with increasingly panic in his eyes.

Then his grimaces clicked into place and the plot of the Little Mermaid flashed into her mind. “You can’t talk, can you?”

Yousef grabbed onto her fingers then and nodded enthusiastically to indicate to her that she was right.

“Did you sell your voice for the chance to be human?”

He nodded again and she groaned before adding, “Yousef! Why would you do that?! Do you know the risk you were taking. What if you hadn’t found me? I bet there’s a deadline too, right?!”

With a shrug of his shoulders, he pointed to her and then himself as if to say that he’d found her. 

“It’s a good job I love you, you dummy, because otherwise you’d be screwed.”

Heat rushed into her cheeks when she realised what she had said. Two and a bit days of talking to him and she was admitting that she was in love with him.

However, before she could gauge his reaction to her declaration, Chris was upon them with a curious look on her face. “Is this the mystery guy?” Chris asked.

“Yeah,” Sana said. It was futile to try and deny anything, especially as Chris would have witnessed their hug. “Chris, this is Yousef. Yousef, my friend Chris.”

It was only once she had made the introductions and Chris had greeted Yousef cheerfully and stuck her hand out that she realised he couldn’t talk and she was going to have to somehow explain away the whole ‘sold my voice for the chance of being human and tracking you down’ thing. 

But to her surprise, Yousef shook Chris’ hand and said, “Lovely to meet you, too.”

Sana did a double take and stared him. He quirked his eyebrow and leaned over to whisper in her ear, “You declared you loved me and so I win my deal with the warlock. It was easier than I anticipated too. I hadn’t really figured out just how I was going to get you to say you loved me - or even if you did.”

Shaking her head, she said, “That’s too many risks!”

“I had faith that we were meant to be. After all, Allah does say that we were created in pairs.” 

She grinned at his words and at just how perfect he was for her. They truly did have to have been created to be together. 

“Besides,” Yousef said in a louder voice so Chris could hear, too. “I really did want to sample what coffee tastes like and now I can.”

“You’ve never drunk coffee before?” Chris asked in a confused tone.

Sana and Yousef both laughed and looked at each other before Sana said, “It’s a long story.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/) should you wish


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